OLD BRIDGE TWP. — The Jersey Shore starts at Laurence Harbor, a section of Old Bridge Township. The Middlesex County hamlet is unmistakably a beach town; it sits on a bluff overlooking the Raritan Bay, with clear-day views of Sandy Hook, Long Island, and the expanse of ocean beyond.

In the center is a large parking lot with a bathhouse pavilion to accommodate beachgoers. There’s a bait shop right there, pizza and ice cream a few steps away.

Shoreland Circle, the residential street that overlooks the boardwalk and dunes, is a mixed collection of old narrow bungalows, and those recently expanded and modernized. Except for the hill, it looks like a neighborhood in any beachfront town, from Manasquan to Long Beach Island.

But the parking lot is empty these days, and the bathhouse is closed. A lone port-a-potty is all that’s needed.

There is no endless summer in Laurence Harbor these days. Just endless frustration. And unanswered questions. And a long, high, black chain-link fence that keeps most of the beach closed.

In the spring of 2009, the federal Environmental Protection Agency closed most of Laurence Harbor’s beaches and put 1.3 miles of Middlesex County waterfront on its list of Superfund sites. Now another summer is here, and will go, before the beach reopens. And maybe another. And maybe another.

The problem is lead-laden slag, which was taken from the old National Lead industrial site in Sayreville, where Dutch Boy paint was made, and used to anchor jetties and bolster the seawall in the area.

The EPA has a "preferred remedy" for the site, but will not make it public until next month. After that, there will be a 30- to 45-day public hearing period, ending either around or after Labor Day. And after that, well, who knows?

"We can’t discuss the proposal until it is made public," said Elias Rodriguez, a spokesman for the EPA, who added no exact date in July has been decided. "At that point, we’ll put forth several proposals, including our preferred remedy. Any cleanup schedule is contingent on the remediation plan that is decided."

Most people in Laurence Harbor take it in stride. What else can they do?

"I got over being angry two years ago," said Donna Wilson, who was working on her elaborate garden on her property, which overlooks the shoreline.

She bought one of the shotgun shacks for $395,000 a few years back — "I didn’t buy the bungalow, I bought the beautiful corner lot, and the view," she said — and began renovating right away. But within a year, the fences and warning signs went up.

A bungalow two doors down is now on the market for $260,000.

"I don’t worry too much about that," she said. "Because I’m staying for good, and I know that someday, I hope anyway, the beaches will reopen."

Residents of the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge are hoping for an end to the Raritan Bay superfund siteIt was during the 1960s and 1970s that a company called National Lead deposited slag throughout the seawall in Raritan Bay to help prevent erosion along the shoreline. Slag, is a byproduct from the lead refining process that contains toxic heavy metals. The lead stayed there for decades. It was in 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency determined the water was unsafe for people. The beach has been fenced in and off limits ever since. (Video by Andre Malok / The Star-Ledger)

In the three years since the beach was cordoned off, the word "slag" became part of the vernacular of the Middlesex County waterfront.

By definition, slag is "the vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore."

In Middlesex, it is a vitreous mess left as the residue of heavy industry that once dominated the bayshore, then made worse by the decision 50 years ago to use the slag on the seawalls and jetties. The 2,500 feet of seawall in Laurence Harbor have shown elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper.

The word "slag" is now synonymous with frustration.

"You wonder what the holdup is," said Dana Stovall, who watched as her son Jaydon Tortorello, 8, ran around the playground just a few yards from the fenced-off slag. "They put up the fence and that was that. Nobody’s cleaning it up."

Most of the slag on the Middlesex waterfront is in an industrial waste-product called kettle bottoms; the hardened gunk left over in the smelting process. The kettle bottoms are easy to spot. They anchor the jetty at Cheesequake Creek in the Morgan section of Sayreville, and were dumped among the granite boulders along the seawall. Unlike the natural rocks, the kettle bottoms are burnt-orange in color, and rusted or pockmarked with corrosion. They are dense and impossibly heavy.

The slag contamination stretches from the creek jetty to Cliffwood Beach, which, like Laurence Harbor, is a part of Old Bridge Township.

But there are places along the way where beaches are open, side by side with those closed. Part of the community frustration with the beach closing lies in what is still open. The fishing jetty at Cheesequake Creek is closed, but the adjacent beach, just yards away, is open.

"I’m trying to understand this contamination," said Peter Insalaco, who owns the bait shop and tackle shop at Laurence Harbor. "If there’s so much lead, why is the water safe here (the open beach) and not there (the closed)."

While most of the Laurence Harbor Beach is closed, the boardwalk, jetty, playground and walking path are open. So is the beach just a few feet from the closed section, where Nicole Oropallo waded in to put her kayak in the water.